Caramel Macadamia Nut Cookies

These cookies are one of the best tasting cookies I have ever baked! You can taste the caramel goodness and the sweetness is just right. The Macadamia nuts are crunchy and go very well with the caramel taste. At first the recipe looks like it is going to taste extremely sweet because it uses both light muscovado sugar and golden syrup. But hey! It is really just nice, believe me.

My daughter was at home, so she wanted all the fancy shaped cut outs. Or else I would just use plain old round cookie cutters.

They are considered luxe cookies and it is a real treat. I imagine I have a large glass cookie jar and fill it up to the brim. Let me warn you, it is really hard to just stop at one! Be prepared.

Caramel Macadamia Nut Cookies
Yields 35 to 40 large cookies

Ingredients
120 g unsalted butter, softened
150 g light Muscovado sugar
160g golden syrup
220g plain flour
1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
150g ground almonds
80g Macadamia nuts, chopped

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt together.
Put butter and sugar in a stand mixer and cream till soft.
Add the golden syrup, beat the mixture until well combined.
Now add the ground almonds, beat well.
At a low speed, add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, mixing until just combined.
Fold in the nuts by hand till evenly distributed.
Roll the dough in parts between cut out plastic sheets/bags to about 1/2 to 3/4 cm thick and put the dough in the fridge to chill for an hour, for ease of handling.
You might need to divide the dough into a few bags/sheets
Switch on oven to 180 C with fan mode.
Working with one sheet of dough at a time, (the rest of the dough remains in the fridge) remove the top piece of plastic, stamp out the dough using cookie cutter of about 5 to 6 cm in diameter.
Put on a lined baking sheet or tray, better yet use silpat if you have one.
Bake in batches for 10 to 12 minutes until golden. Cool on wire racks.

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